Andrew Bogle Some Contemporary NZ Printmakers and Their Processes of Work

7/31/2019 Andrew Bogle Some Contemporary NZ Printmakers and Their Processes of Work

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Some Contemporary New ZealandPrintmakers and their Processes of

WorkTruth to materials has. . . been one of the most important concepts in establishing theautonomy of print during the 20th century. For it is in stressing the nature of theirmeans that artists have broken away from the immemorial conception of prints asimitations of works in the unique media.PAT GILMORE

The structure of the paper, the management of chemical processes in etching, and thevariable printing process itself represent to the graphic artist what the canvas, the

palette, and the application of paint represent for the painter.ERWIN GRADMANN

ANDREW BOGLE

In this article I hope both to clarify the important distinctions betweenoriginal prints and photo-mechanical reproductions, and to introduce thereader to the work of some New Zealand printmakers and the processesthey use.

While most people can distinguish an oil painting from a reproduction,not so many can tell a reproduction from an original print. Some peopleassume, erroneously, that anything printed is necessarily areproduction. The problem is that the term 'print' has been devalued.Original prints and reproductions alike are called prints. Recently therehas been discussion o~ this subject, on television, in some of the dailynewspapers, and in letters to the editor of this periodical. The presentarticle has been prompted by that discussion. However, it is necessaryto say that the important distinctions can only be explained up to apoint. Beyond that, one has to view original prints, either in the dealergalleries or the museums.


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RODNEY FUMPSTON Sky-Marble Arch 1976etching with surface-rolled colour

It is important it be understood that nothing to the detriment ofreproductions is being suggested in this article. Reproductions servevaluable educational, promotional, and decorative functions. Inmagazines and art-books, and as posters and facsimiles, they give us anidea of what original works of art look like - works that we otherwisemight not see. All major public art galleries make and sell reproductionsof works from their collections. Yet no-one purchasing them thinks that

he is acquiring an original work.

In the case of a painting, the differences between the original and thereproduction are obvious. The dense opacity of thick oil-paint on canvascannot be convincingly simulated by means of thin films of translucentink on smooth paper - let alone its sometimes rough texture.


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ROBIN WHITEA Buzzy Bee for Siulolovao1977screenprint

In the case of watercolours, the distinctions are not so pronounced; butthey are still important. Watercolours are executed on specially texturedhandmade paper. The minute particles of pigment suspended in

watercolour washes settle in the recesses of the textured paper, whilethe exposed ridges impart a. luminosity to the colours. This effect, whichgives life to the watercolour, cannot be simulated with the oil-based inksthat are used in the reproduction process.

Just as oil-paint and watercolour are distinctive media, so too are thedifferent types of print - woodcut, linocut, engraving, etching, aquatint,lithography, screenprint, etcetera. A printmaker's choice of one mediuminstead of another for a particular image should not be an arbitrary one.To some extent, the success of a print is dependent on the degree towhich the artist's idea is sympathetic to the unique qualities of the

medium he uses. To separate an image from the medium in which it isexecuted (which is the principle behind reproduction) is to disembody it.Although an image reproduced is given a new body, so to speak, it losesits life. For example, an etching, photographed and reprinted aslithography, loses the velvety, embossed quality it originally possessed.And a direct colour lithograph, each colour of which has been printedfrom a different plate or stone with a different ink, when photographedand reproduced in half-tone becomes radically altered. The colour


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images inArt New Zealand have been printed in half-tone. On closeinspection, they can be seen to be composed of minute dots of colour -red, blue, yellow and black. These can never more than approximatelyrepresent the true colours of the original images, which are mixed andprinted separately. Comparing different colour plates of the same.

painting from different art books reveals how variations in colour canoccur between reproductions. Printmakers sign and number editions oforiginal prints to endorse the quality of their prints, which reproductionsinvariably undermine.

GENEVA TRELLE Where the Water Bendsto Accommodate the Stems of Grass1975colour woodcut

Traditionally, an original print is thought of as an image executeddirectly on a matrix (stone, plate, woodblock etc.) by an artist; theninked, and transferred to paper by impression. An edition of prints isgenerally a set of multiples, or identical impressions, cloned from themaster image executed on the matrix. Lately, however, more and moreartists are sidestepping the concern with exact replication, preferringinstead to modify successive impressions of an image to create series ofrelated but unique images, which, in the tight sequence, chart a

dynamic development. Picasso believed that if a print begged to bemade it would not matter if only one impression was taken.

The main print media can be grouped in four categories - relief, intaglio,stencil, andplanographic. I will deal with each of these categoriesseparately: first summarily defining them, explaining some of theprocesses, then briefly discussing the work of a few New Zealandprintmakers who employ them. As some of the processes - for example


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mezzotint and engraving - are not practised at all in this country (or veryrarely), I will attend only to the more common ones.

MARK THOMAS Greed 1979linocut

RELIEFA finger-print is the most basic of relief prints. Only the raisedwhorls of skin receive the ink and make a print. More sophisticated, butbased on exactly the same principle, are woodcuts, wood-engravingsand linocuts. With each of these techniques, areas of the block whichare to print blank are cut away with knives or chisels to leaveupstanding ridges and plateaus which, when inked and printed, producethe positive elements of the print. Inking is done with a roller, andprinting with a press that resembles a washing mangle.

Although popular with New Zealand printmakers around the nineteen-twenties and 'thirties, the practice of relief painting has declined in

popularity in recent years. In the case of the woodcut, it is perhaps theintractability of wood which discourages more widespread use, althoughthis does not apply to lino, which is a reasonably soft material. The mainreason is probably a shift in the modern movement away from stylessympathetic to organic media towards more technically sophisticatedeffects - photo-mechanical and hard-edge effects. Many of the seniorcontemporary artists working today, have produced relief prints at sometime - for example William Sutton, May Smith, Colin McCahon and Robert


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Ellis, although none regularly makes relief prints today. Of the youngerartists, Bryan James, Philip Clairmont, Geneva Trelle and Mark Thomashave been the most consistent practitioners in recent years.

PHILIP CLAIRMONT Sink1978linocut

Geneva Trelle, an American artist who arrived in New Zealand in 1970and lived in Nelson, produced a significant body of outsized polychromewoodcuts before returning to the United States in 1977. Combiningtraditional European and Japanese methods, she executed her imageson large totara slabs, with handmade knives. Typical of her work is thelarge nature-study of a frog at the water's edge entitled Where thewater bends to accommodate the stems of grass, which evokes a senseof solitude reminiscent of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts of carp andgoldfish.

Many of Bryan James's woodcuts (especially those depicting rocks) havea similar mood. His prints also owe much to Japanese printing methodsand materials.


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STANLEY PALMERBrickworks 1979bamboo drypoint andlithograph

In contrast to Trelle and James whose woodcuts are predominantly

coloured, Philip Clairmont and Mark Thomas both work in a bold linearstyle, enhanced by the contrast of black ink and white paper. Thomas'switty and endearing linocuts made their first public appearance severalyears ago, on the walls of buildings around the centre of Auckland,pasted up like posters just out of reach of iconoclasts. More recently hehas begun to exhibit his prints in dealer galleries. Thomas's subjects areinvariably based on classical themes - such as The Fall of Icarus andPrometheus Bound - or familiar Auckland landmarks modified: forexample, the Auckland Harbour Bridge collapsed, or Rangitoto Islanderupting.

Philip Clairmont's powerful woodcuts and linocuts reveal a debt to theGerman Expressionists working at the turn of the last century. Hissubjects are personal and often domestic - a sink with bathroom mirrorand reflected self-portrait; a backyard scene with washing hanging on aclothes-line. Unlike Thomas, who cuts away lino to leave ridges whichprint black, Clairmont uses a reverse, 'whiteline', technique by cuttinginto the surface of his block grooves, which print as white lines.


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GARY TRICKER The Train ofSerendipity1979etching and aquatint

INTAGLIO In an opposite process to that of relief prints, the positiveelements of an intaglio print are produced from the inked recesses of animage executed on a copper or zinc plate by engraving, etching,scratching or indenting its smooth surface. Ink is forced into thesefurrows and indentations with a leather pad called a 'dabber': the inkbeing especially stiff so as to remain in the recesses of the plate whilethe surface is first wiped, then buffed by prolonged cuffing with the palmof the hand. To print, damp paper is laid on the inked plate and crankedbetween the steel rollers of a press, the etching plate resting on a solidflat steel bed and the paper covered with a soft felt blanket to cushion itand press the paper fibres into the recesses of the plate. Consequently,intaglio prints are embossed, and can, in a sense, be read like braille.

Of all the intaglio processes, etching and aquatint are the most widelyused by New Zealand printmakers. Engraving and mezzotint areobsolete; and drypoint is practised only a little. However, one of NewZealand's best known printmakers, Stanley Palmer, has employed thetechnique in a novel way by using the dried sheaths which grow at thebase of the bamboo, in place of a metal plate. After cutting these

sheaths and glueing them to a baseboard, he can scratch an image inthe shiny surface, enabling ink to penetrate and hold in the fibroustissues of the organic plate when it is inked. The surface patterns of thesheaths impart to his prints their characteristic veined appearance.Often adding lithography for colour effects, Palmer's bamboo-drypointscommonly depict scenes from New Zealand landscape, both urban andrural.


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BARRY CLEAVINA Question ofBalance 1977etching

Perhaps the best known of contemporary New Zealand etchers are GaryTricker and Barry Cleavin. Tricker's meticulous etchings and aquatintsdepict a fantasy world in which the railway (a focus of his childhood) is arecurring theme. Cleavin's tight linear etchings (predominantly visualpuns with anatomical studies) have an almost Teutonic quality aboutthem. Cleavin, who has exhibited his etchings since 1966 in this country,has participated in a number of international print biennials, and had aprofound influence on New Zealand etching as a whole.

Much of this country's etching is figurative and narrative: none perhapsmore so than the intricately-wrought etchings of Jeffrey Harris. Intense,brittle and highly linear, these small prints weave with fine black lines atale of personal tragedy. The small scale and tight linear style of theetchings of Tricker, Cleavin and Harris extends to Grahame Sydney'sprints: etchings of neglected domestic paraphernalia - dolls, old shoesetcetera - which date from 1975.


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BARRY CLEAVIN For the Executive Suite,Number 2 1974etching

Aside from Gary Tricker, Kate Coolahan and John Drawbridge areWellington printmakers who are known almost exclusively for etchings.Kate Coolahan was one of the first New Zealand printmakers to usephoto-etching, and has crusaded since 1976 (when she visited Japan ona Cultural Exchange Programme) to stimulate a greater interestamongst printmakers in paper - especially the handmade varieties.

Of the Auckland etchers, three names in particular stand out: VictoriaEdwards, Rodney Fumpston and Denys Watkins.

Fumpston's gaily-coloured etchings of sea- sky- and landscapes arecharacterised by expansive tonal-areas, casually set off by well-placedbravura, aquatinted dashes and splashes of acid. A technicalperfectionist, Fumpston matches vigour with restraint in a way which isuncharacteristic of New Zealand etching as a whole, with the exceptionperhaps of Victoria Edwards's prints. Edwards's large gestural, etchedmonoprints produced in 1977 are reminiscent of calligraphic ideograms:but with a velvety / embossed quality which is unique to etching.


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DENYS WATKINS Whispering Hope 1975

photogrpahic screenprint

Denys Watkins is perhaps the most versatile and witty of all NewZealand printmakers. Through his studies at the Central School of Artand the Royal College of Art in London in the late 'sixties, Watkinsbecame conversant with a number of print media and techniques -especially screen-print, etching and lithography - which he moves easilybetween as his ideas require. A common theme of his prints is the socialposition of the artist and the conflict of styles within the ModernMovement. One such etching with aquatint, Life Class 1977, depicts anartist at work on a formal abstract painting of grids and crosses, through

which the painted figure of a nude reclining woman can be vaguelydiscerned. The tonal parts of this image have been produced by theaquatint process which involves dusting parts of the etching plate with apowdered resin that, when warmed, fuses to the surface of the plate.Upon immersion in acid, the exposed parts of the plate become texturedwith masses of fine pits, where the acid has bitten into the plate in theinterstices between the acid-resistant particles of resin. When printed, alight coating of resin dust results in a dark aquatint, and vice versa.


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PATRICK HANLY Rainbow overMount Eden 1972screenprint with drypoint

STENCIL Screenprinting is the only common stencil method of printing ofany significance. By forcing fluid ink by means of a rubber blade, knownas a squeegee, through open areas of a tightly stretched gauze screento the underside of which is attached a stencil image, a dense layer ofink with the configuration of the stencil can be laid on almost any flatsurface. As a fine art medium screen printing, also known as serigraphy,has gained late recognition owing to a certain stigma associated with its

commercial applications. Yet screen printing is rapidly growing popularwith printmakers in this country on account of its versatility and thecomparative inexpensiveness of the basic equipment. Of all NewZealand artists working in the medium, Mervyn Williams and RobinWhite have been the most consistent, although numerous other artistshave produced excellent prints in the medium, including Pat Hanly,Denys Watkins, Gordon Walters, Paul Hartigan, Wong Sing Tai, VivianLynne and Paul Johns, to name a few. Forms and tones are reduced inRobin White's prints to a vocabulary of clean flat shapes like jig-sawpuzzle pieces which fit neatly together.

Patrick Hanly's Figures in Lightseries, arguably the most significantseries of prints he has produced, are composed similarly of simplifiedflat areas of colour, in the idiom of Matisse's paper cut-outs, but lessformally arranged than in Robin White's prints. Hanly did without ascreen to make these prints: using instead a pure stencil process(pochoir) which he jokingly refers to as the 'wet sock' technique. Insteadof attaching his stencil to a screen, he simply laid it down on paper anddabbed it with an ink-soaked cloth. After a while the stencil


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disintegrated - which accounts for the small size of the editions. Hanlylater made a number of screenprints which he printed himself, althoughof late he has worked with a printer.

MERVYN WILLIAMS Chromatic Variation II 1969photographic screenprint

Mervyn Williams was one of the first New Zealand artists to intelligentlyexploit the new photo-mechanical screen printing technology, designedfor commercial purposes but enthusiastically adopted by British andAmerican graphic artists in the early 'sixties. Williams dazzlingly opticalChromatic Variations series, executed in 1969, proclaimed the arrival of

the new technological print in New Zealand art.

Denys Watkins and Paul Hartigan, too, have produced some excellentscreen prints using the photo-stencil process, by adapting ready-madephotographic images and transforming them in various ways. One ofHartigan's latest screen prints, Little Lies 1979, is based on aphotographic image of 'falsies', lifted from a mail-order advertisementon the back of a comic. Hartigan has blown-up the image and laid-insaturated colours to appropriately emphasise the subject. Watkins'sscreenprint Whispering Hope, which employs the same photo-screentechnique, uses contrived colour also, to reinforce his visual statement

about the aesthetics of New Zealand suburban housing.


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JEFFREY HARRIS Death and Love 1977etching

The majority of screen prints being made today, however, are based onhand-cut stencils. In recent years, Gordon Walters has produced anumber of impressive screen prints which intelligently exploit the hard-edge potential of the hand-cut stencil. Other artists who haverecognised its suitability for hardedge imagery and who have madescreenprints in the formal abstract idiom recently are Ian Scott, RichardKilleen, Paul Johns and the New Zealand expatriate artist from New York,Max Gimblett, who produced a set of screen prints during his short visithere last August in collaboration with the master printer Mervyn

Williams. Williams has also printed editions for a number of other artists,some of these commissioned by The Print Club, run in association withArt New Zealand, and one of the few print publishing ventures in thecountry.

Screenprinting can be adapted to a variety of materials, for which thereis available a wide range of specialised inks and colours. Wong Sing Tai'sBadlands 1974 is printed on plexiglass. Paul Hartigan has made screenprints on glass, in combination with mirroring, allowing the latter toshow through the unprinted parts of the image. And Terry Stringer hasmade three-dimensional screen prints on flat card which he later folded

into constructions whose shapes relate closely to the images. In hisMadonna in a Box1974 he cleverly distorted the picture so that thebaby on its mother's lap and the mother's face and arms all projectedout from the dominant picture plane in a highly realistic way.


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GORDON WALTERS Tama 1977screenprint

PLANOGRAPHIC Lithography is the only planographic medium - so calledbecause the image on the matrix is planar, or flat, unlike relief andintaglio. Lithography is based on a chemical principle: the naturalantipathy of oil and water.

To make his image, the artist paints or draws with a greasy substance(known as tusche) on the surface of either a limestone slab, or itsmodern equivalent, a grained aluminium or zinc plate. The stone or plate

is then chemically treated with a weak solution of gum arabic to make itabsorb water and remain damp during printing. When rolled up withgreasy ink, the damp parts of the stone or plate repel the ink, while thegreasy parts (where the image has been drawn) attract it. When paper islaid on the inked stone or plate and passed through a lithographic pressunder great pressure a reverse impression of the original image isproduced. Where more than one colour is required, additional stones orplates are employed, each bearing a different colour.


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PAUL HARTIGAN Silly Shapes 1979lithograph

Compared with screenprinting and etching, lithography has not beenmuch practised by New Zealand artists in recent years. Colin McCahonmade a number of lithograph's in the late 1950s, some of which werepublished by Peter Webb. Roy Cowan and Juliet Peters, two Wellingtonprintmakers who share a lithographic press, gained their knowledge ofthe medium during their studies at art schools in London throughout the1950s. Stanley Palmer, as mentioned earlier, uses the process regularly,mainly in conjunction with drypoint.

Many printmakers in this country have never made a lithograph. Part ofthe problem is the unavailability of workshops and experienced printers.Lithography is without question the most difficult of all print media. Yetit offers a degree of subtlety and a range of textures unequalled by anyother medium.

Since the establishment of a well equipped lithographic workshop at theElam School of Fine Arts in Auckland in 1974, a number of students havebecome acquainted with the medium. Two graduate students, CathrynShire and Grahame Cornwall have recently set up a workshop to enableartists who have never made lithographs to make images on stones orplates at no expense to themselves. In the last six months more thantwenty artists have made prints under this scheme; and an exhibition ofthe results is being planned. In the near future we can expect to see agreat growth of interest in lithography.


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Andrew Bogle is Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Auckland City Art Gallery. He isat present writing a further article, on the subject of the collecting of prints, which is tobe published in a forthcoming issue ofArt New Zealand.

ROBIN WHITE was born in Te Puke in 1946 and attended Elam from 1965 to 1967. Shehas been a full-time artist since 1972. As well as exhibiting in many group shows hereand overseas, she has, since her first one-woman shows in 1970 at Moller's Gallery,Auckland and at Victoria and Canterbury Universities, had shows at the Barry LettGalleries in 1971, 1973 and 1976.

RODNEY FUMPSTON was born in Fiji in 1947. He gained an MFA (First Class Honours)from Elam in 1972, before going to London, where he studied at the Central School ofArt and Design until 1977. He received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Award in 1978.He has shown etchings, prints and collages. His first one-man show was at the GraphitiGallery in London in 1976. In 1977 he exhibited at the Oxford Gallery, Oxford; the BarryLett Galleries, Auckland; and Galerie Legard, Wellington. In 1978 he had shows at theSydney Gallery, Sydney, the Serjeant Gallery, Wanganui and Galerie Legard,Wellington. This year, he has exhibited at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery.

GENEVA TREllE was born in the United States in 1937. She was a Highest HonoursGraduate of Washington State University's School of Fine Arts. Apart from her stay inNew Zealand she has also lived in Canada, Europe and the Middle East. She returned tothe United States in 1977.

MARK THOMAS was born in Auckland in 1952. His only training in art was received atprimary school. His first one-man show was held at the Denis Cohn Gallery in March,1979. He lives in Auckland and works full-time as a doctor.

PHILIP CLAIRMONT was born at Nelson in 1949. In 1970 he graduated with a Diploma ofFine Arts (Honours, Painting) from Ilam, and was the recipient of a Queen Elizabeth IIArts Council Grant in 1978. He has participated in many group shows in New Zealandand elsewhere and has had many one-man shows since his first at Several Arts Gallery


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in Christchurch in 1970. His most recent exhibition was at the Elva Bett Gallery inWellington, earlier this year. Philip Clairmont lives in Auckland.

STANLEY PALMER was born at Thames in 1936. After doing third year art and crafts atDunedin Technical College, he taught art in schools for several years: but is now a full-time painter and printmaker. The same year that he discovered his bamboo drypoint

process (1964) he won first prize in the Devonport Arts Festival. He received from theQueen Elizabeth II Arts Council their Printmakers' Award in 1970 and a Travel Grant in1974. His prints have been shown extensively overseas as well as in this country. Hismost recent one-man show was at the Peter Webb Gallery in September, 1979.

GARY TRICKER was born in Wellington in 1938. He is mainly self-taught, in associationwith other artists. He has participated in many group shows overseas and, among hisone-man shows are those at the Bett-Duncan Gallery, Wellington in 1975 and theVictoria University library in 1978. In 1965 he won a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Councilscholarship to study print-making.

BARRY CLEAVIN was born in Dunedin in 1939. He obtained a Diploma of Fine Arts fromIlam in 1965, and Honours in 1966. He received the Canterbury University Overton

Scholarship in 1966 and in 1967 was a foundation committee member of the NewZealand Print Council. He was the recipient of Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council awards in1967 and 1972. In the latter year he also received print awards in Hawaii andManawatu. In 1975 Barry Cleavin was artist-in-residence at the Gippsland Institute inVictoria. His first one-man show was at the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1965. Atpresent, he is a tutor at the Christchurch Technical Institute.

DENYS WATKINS was born in Wellington in 1945. He has studied at the WellingtonSchool of Design, and in London at the Central School of Art and the Royal College ofArt. He gained a British Council Scholarship (1968-69) and has won the ANZ BankDrawing Award of the Te Awamutu Festival (1975), the National Bank Art Award forwater colours (1978), and the inaugural South Pacific Television Travelling ArtsScholarship (1978). Prior to receiving the last award he had been lecturing part-time in

printmaking and graphic design at Elam. At the Barry lett Galleries he has shown prints(1971), watercolours (1973), constructions and swamp dwellings (1975) and etchings,drawings and constructions (1976). He showed prints and drawings at the Peter WebbGalleries in 1978.

MERVYN WILLIAMS was born in Whakatane in 1940 and studied Fine Arts at Elam. In1966 he won First Prize in the Graphic Section of the Hay's Art Award; and won theNew Zealand Print Council Samarkand Award in 1969. He has participated in manygroup shows, both in New Zealand and overseas. In 1975 he had a one-man show atthe Barry Lett Galleries. He lives in Helensville

PATRICK HANLY was born in Palmerston North in 1932. He studied at the CanterburySchool of Art 1952-1956. In 1957 he went to London for further study. He received aBritish Arts Council Award to Yugoslavia in 1960, an Italian Government Scholarship in1960, and a Dutch Government Scholarship in 1961. In 1962 he returned to NewZealand and his first one-man show was held in Christchurch in 1963. Since then hehas exhibited widely, here and overseas. Hanly, a full-time artist, is a member of theNew Zealand Society of Sculptors and Painters. He has executed several major muralcommissions.

JEFFREY HARRIS was born in 1949 at Akaroa and is largely self-taught. He was FrancesHodgkins Fellow at Otago University in 1977. His first one-man show was in the


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Dunedin Museum in 1969, and he moved to that city in the following year. Since thenhe has exhibited regularly throughout the country. In 1978 the Manawatu Art Galleryorganised a touring retrospective exhibition of his work from 1969-1978. He iscurrently living in Wellington.

GORDON WALTERS was born in Wellington in 1919. He trained at the School of Design,

Wellington Polytechnic, 1936-1944. From 1948-1953 he studied in Europe andAustralia. His first exhibition was at the Wellington Public Library in 1949. He did notexhibit again until the late nineteen-sixties. Since that time he has had many one-manshows in Auckland and Wellington. In 1968 he received the Benson and Hedges Awardand, in 1971, a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Fellowship.

PAUL HARTIGAN was born in New Plymouth in 1953. He attended Elam from 1971-1973, and in 1976 won the Wanganui Lions-AA Travel Art Award. His first one-manshow was held at the Barry Lett Galleries in Auckland in October 1979. He hasparticipated in many group shows, here and overseas.

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Andrew Bogle Some Contemporary NZ Printmakers and Their Processes of Work